


The Jagged Edge

by theviolonist



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:32:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's no room in her life for giving up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Jagged Edge

Caprica City in the summer is so hot it reeks; asphalt sticks to Kara's sandals and the heat weighs down on her shoulders, forces her to stop running after half her usual distance, drenched in sweat. Ochre dust settles on her forearms. It's always the same, but somehow it always takes her by surprise, always sneaks up on her.

She stumbles on the track, feeling a little lightheaded; she reaches for her backpack before remembering she forgot it at home, or rather gave up taking it with her when she saw it next to where her mother was snoring on the living-room table. She'd rather go without water than face her mother more than is absolutely necessary. 

Her throat is sore; she grimaces. A ruddy-faced, wide-jawed jogger runs up to her, his brows furrowed, and offers water she refuses, not even trying to be polite. Socrata can say what she wants, Kara's learned her lesson. Suffering is good for the soul. 

She watches the jogger get smaller on the running track, her fist still pressed against the stitch in her side. Deep breaths – in, out. She takes a step back and almost screams when her ankle hits a rock. When she looks down, the cut is deep, almost showing bone, blood gushing from the torn flesh; she keeps the yell in her mouth, barrelled against her clenched teeth. 

_I will not scream._ It's almost a commandment by now. Kara wouldn't be surprised to find it in the scrolls. 

She gives herself a few minutes before she starts running again, the pain shooting up her leg every time she moves. Blood soaks through her sock. Kara keeps running.

*

It's almost nightfall when she comes back to the apartment, and the sky is slashed with red, pink clouds flush with rain roiling near the falling sun. Socrata doesn't look up from her papers; Kara assesses the situation in three glances, the glass in front of her, her old Army stuff, the smell of cold cigarette smoke. It's not going to be a good night. 

"What hour do you call that?"

"What do you care?" Kara answers before she can think better of it – as though it would've made a difference. 

Socrata looks up at her, her eyes cold. "No daughter of mine is going to roam the streets at nightfall," she says. "It's bad enough you're not smart enough to keep your grades up, I don't need you to become a drugged whore. Though I'm sure you already took care of the whore part."

It would be funny, if it weren't unbearable – every time Kara thinks she's ready for the next strike, she thinks she's heard it all; but every time it hits her like a punch to the stomach and she nearly folds with the pain of it, anger spreading through her body like gangrene. 

"Frak you."

Socrata's head snaps up. "What did you just say?" she hisses.

Kara camps herself on her feet. "I said, frak you. You have no idea who I am." She kicks the door and only remembers her injury when it reopens, warm thick blood flowing on top of the crusty, half-scarred wound. 

This too, Kara knows it by heart – Socrata coming close, her fisted hand in Kara's hair, her ambrosia breath, her nails biting Kara's cheek, and her words – "I'm your mother."

Kara struggles, in vain. One day I'll get her revenge, she thinks. One day I'll get the frak out of there, and I'll never come back. That'll teach her. 

"I wish you weren't."

One day I'll give back all the punches, she thinks when Socrata's knuckles dig a new bruise on her eyelid and she feels something breaking, cartilage if she's lucky. One day I'll be stronger than her.

Even then, there's always the nagging thought at the back of her mind – _but she'll always be your mother, she'll --_

Kara tries her hardest to shut it down. If Socrata is to be believed, she's not that good at thinking, anyway. 

*

Kara's best – and only – friend is a stray cat that she found erring around the park where she goes to play pyramid with the neighbourhood kids. She was alone, idly kicking the ball around – it hissed when it saw her, ratty fur caked with mud and distrust shining in its beady, deep-sunken eyes.

They got used to each other slowly, one stuffy afternoon at a time. Even now it will only come out of its sought-after patch of shadow to greet her with a nip at the ankle, knobbly spine brushing against her calf. 

Once, Kara found it facing a big dog she knows belongs to the obese kid who lives down the street. She kicked the dog in the ribs until it ran away squeaking, half in retribution for that time the kid thought it was a good idea to throw mud at her. When the dog was gone, the cat – Kara refuses to give it a name – hissed at her again, ears flat on its skull, and came back to sprawl in the shade, lapping at a rosy injury on one of its bony legs. 

That's what friendship is all about. Kick your enemies, and lick your wounds in silence. 

*

Kara only has two idols: one that her father fave her and one she found in the temple, forgotten on the floor. They're both goddesses. Kara doesn't trust men – why would she? Of the two men she ever knew more than in passing, the first one abandoned her and the second one thought fit to tell the whole school she was a whore the morning after he took her virginity. 

Kara goes to the temple once a week. It's far from her neighbourhood, but she walks in every weather, rain, snow, and even the stifling heat. Sweat drips on her temples and her hair sticks unpleasantly to her forehead, but she doesn't care. She's known worse. 

It's late enough when she gets there that Kara is almost alone. A Brother is puttering with the candles in the back, but Kara stays near the altars. She never goes too deep into the building – sometimes she thinks it's because she's afraid she would never come out.

"Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer –"

She says the whole homely by heart, barely listening to herself, but holding the idols so tight Artemis' bow leaves a mark in her palm.

It's dark when she gets out, her faith spent, her back broken. She feels empty of everything that usually keeps her up, running bingo fuel with no courage left in her veins; she barely has the time to stagger to a bench before she slumps on it, her limbs knocking together. 

She screws her eyes shut. It's no use letting herself dive into the darkness – she's done it before, and it won't change anything: she'll still have to go back and face her mother, and wake up tomorrow and fight. 

She reaches in her pocket and takes out one of the cigars she stole at the market and her lighter, letting out a sigh when the smoke fills her mouth. Here. Maybe it won't be okay, but she's Kara Thrace. There's no room in her life for giving up. 

*

In the summer Socrata doesn't care as much, because no one will see the bruises – not that anyone cares. Her fist is closed when she hits and her palm is open when she slaps and urges Kara to be _better_ , for the gods' sake, there are a thousand opportunities and if she keeps being stupid she'll end up –

"Like you?" Kara sneers. 

Hurt flashes in Socrata's eyes and for a moment the two of them are left there, suspended in time in a dirty apartment that smells of cigarette and cheap liquor, Socrata's stocky, hunched frame and Kara's lank, uncoiled adolescent nervousness, looking at each other like there isn't enough hatred, enough anger in the world to throw at each other. And if Kara thought about that, ever, she would think about how similar they are with their feet poised, ready to jump, and how the line between love and hatred is always devastating and doesn't really exist in the end.

Socrata reaches to take Kara's wrist in her hand. For a second, Kara waits for her to unfold her clenched fist, maybe link their fingers together -- but then Socrata looks her in the eye and Kara _knows_. Years later, people will ask her why she doesn't believe that people can be good, and she'll think, _that's why_. 

Socrata's fingers tighten until it hurts and Kara clenches her teeth as she twists her wrist, silently, slowly. The bones grind together, white-hot pain shoots up her wrist – Kara wants to scream but she doesn't, won't, she bites her tongue until there's the metallic tang of blood in her mouth and she knows it'll be swollen for days. Socrata's eyes are still screwed into hers, double-bolded steel. 

"You're made for something greater, Kara," she says, her eyes blazing with something Kara can't name. "I'm not going to let you ruin that like the frak-up you are. You have a destiny."

Frak destiny, Kara thinks, her ears full with white noise, trying as hard as she can not to let the tears reach her eyes and failing. 

Socrata lets go of Kara's wrist and it falls to Kara's side, limp, the pain tearing like a knife through her flesh. Socrata sits back at the table, picks up her cigarette in the ashtray and sighs, smoothing the wrinkle between her brow. 

Frak destiny, Kara thinks, and she starts plotting a new revenge. 

*

She thinks of something the day after. She's lying on her bed, her wrist wrapped in a makeshift bandage, bored to death. Kara knows broken bones; she knows there's nothing to do about them but wait, which is the thing she hates most in the world after her mother and this frakking summer that won't end. 

Her plan involves glass shards and will probably get her in serious trouble, but at that point it doesn't matter anymore. No, actually, strike that – she never cared for the consequences and that isn't about to change. She drags herself up, grinding her teeth as she tries to tie her hair in a ponytail, and heads to the wasteland behind the park to search through the dumpsters for some used bottles she can smash to use the shards.

She doesn't see it until she's halfway through the wasteland, shallow hills of garbage surrounding her on every side. It's on the ground, sitting in a pool of blood with guts strewn around and what Kara recognizes as a firecracker stuck in its ass. The head is intact – that's how Kara recognizes it. The cat.

Kara can't help it – she runs to the nearest hill and throws up everything she's got, hunched over herself with her elbows digging in her sides. There's no one to hold her hair back; chunks get stuck in her hair and she tries to clean it with one hand, disgusted, while wiping her face with the other. Her mouth is sour, and she can feel a pounding headache brewing in the back of her head.

She stands up, arms akimbo. Her eyes are full of dust and her clothes reek of garbage, and as she surveys the wasteland she thinks fleetingly that maybe this is where she belongs, thrown in with all the broken, foul-smelling things that no one wants. A hive beats against her ribs, threatening to take over her. 

But she's got no time for self-pity: she grabs a bottle on the heap next to her, smashes it on the ground and kneels down to collect the shards.


End file.
